Scythe vs Brushcutter 1 - South West Annual Scythe Festival - June 2010

[DavidOxford]

If you are in the UK, doobersmanster, google The Scythe Shop, run by Simon Fairlie, who imports the blades from Austria. He is in Dorset, and will also sell you a snath that fits youand give you as much advice as you need. The scythe being used in the film has a competition blade, over a metre long. It's not suitable for anything else except showing off.  You will probably want to settle on an 80cm blade for mowing your meadow. Strongly suggest you do a course when you get your scythe. Enjoy.

[doobersmanster]

I need a scythe bad..I harvest grass seeds and would like to know where to get one like that guy had?

[tangocolt02]

scythe ftw.

[DavidOxford]

Thanks for your interest. The brushcutter is not a string trimmer, it has a three-tine blade. I agree it was never intended to mow fields, and this was only a demonstration of the capabilities of an Austrian scythe in competent hands. Most observers are surprised. wildseed01 has a video showing the whole series of competitions, featuring more conventional tasks. Comparing a scythe and powered lawnmower is a bit like saying you can make a journey in your car faster than I can make it on foot.

[celebrim1]

@jdashe1672: Additionally, I'm not talking about moving on a farm. Let's see you scythe a typical office park while I use a typical zero point turning lawnmower with 60" cutting width and a 15 mph ground speed while cutting. The scythes ability to defeat a tool not intended for the purpose over a 30 second demonstration is not impressive and it borders on delusional. There aren't many people that can scythe like that for a 12 hour day while is 95F (35 celsius, for you Brits).

[tangocolt02]

@celebrim1 lol get over yourself.

[celebrim1]

@jdashe1672: A string trimmer is not the modern version of a sythe. I've worked landscaping. I'd be fired for using a string trimmer in an open field as a waste of fuel and effort. A string trimmer is by definition a trimmer. It's used to work around edges where a lawn mower could not fit or a blade trimmer would be dangerous. If you want to make a fair comparison, compare the scythe to string trimmer when trimming inside and outside a lightweight picket fence having multiple corners.

[ritherz]

gw2 set in the future... why do i have the odd feeling dervishes will still rox?

[ghostdogmovies]

Anet's new costumes leave something to be desired.

[BLOODG0AT]

Derv was suffering from Exhaustion at the end.

[StefansZZ]

Damn, nice zealous scythe!

[kelvinolin]

Yeah, 100b really isn't efficient anymore...

[celebrim1]

Who mows with a brushcutter? Why not have the scythe race a Hustler Super Z or something that people actually use to cut grass out in the real world? You've got one tool being used as it is intended to be used, and another tool being totally misused. It's like holding a race between a wrench and a screwdriver to see which can drive screws. Just because the wrench is used to screw and unscrew doesn't mean its meant to drive a wood screw into a 2x4.

[jdashe1672]

@celebrim1 I agree with you that nobody mows a field with a string trimmer. Of course one would use a brushhog or some other sort of harvester on a modern-type industrial production farm. I don't think that the people competing are ignorant of that. And yes, a brushhog would easily outdistance a scythe in this race. I think the point is to compare apples to apples. The string trimmer IS the modern version of the scythe. It's a competition between a modern and historical version of the same tool.